Experimental progress on virtual cathode, very high power, microwave source development

The evolution of rf accelerator technology toward high-power, high-current, low-emittance beams produces an ever-increasing demand for efficient, very high power microwave sources. The present klystron technology has performed very well but is not expected to produce reliable gigawatt peak-power units in the 1- to 10-GHz regime. Further major advancements must involve other types of sources. The reflexing electron sources can produce microwave powers at the gigawatt level and have demonstrated operation from 800 MHz to 40 GHz. An experiment is under way to investigate concepts to stabilize the frequency of the virtual cathode source. If one can successfully frequency and phase lock this source to an external signal, then this source can operate as a very high power microwave amplifier making it practical for accelerator applications. The progress on an experiment to test these concepts is discussed